Reconstruction and Black Political Activism

As the 39th Congress (1865–1867) convened on December 4, 1865, Radical Republicans confronted a crisis in the South. Since the conclusion of the Civil War in April, most of the former Confederate states had taken dramatic steps to reconstitute their governments under the leaders of the rebellion. President Andrew Johnson, a slaveholder and former Tennessee Senator who stayed loyal to the United States during the war, had granted blanket pardons to many Confederate soldiers and officials, restoring their right to hold public office. Throughout the South, voters elected former Confederates to state legislatures and to Congress. At the state level, southern legislatures populated with former Confederates passed unjust laws known as Black Codes to restrict the rights of freed people.⁶

Outraged by these developments, Radicals were determined to steer the nation in a different direction. Led by Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in the Senate and Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania in the House, this faction within the Republican Party had roots in the antebellum abolitionist movement and had long sought to destroy the institution of slavery and protect the rights of African Americans. The Radicals believed that the federal government could guarantee equal rights for all through legislation, constitutional amendments, and the enforcement powers of the executive branch. Although they were a vocal minority within the Republican Party, they were well-positioned to drive the congressional Reconstruction agenda in the years following the war. They wanted to perfect the Republic, not return to antebellum norms, and many served as activist allies to Black Members of Congress elected during this period.⁷

The opening of the new session of Congress set the stage for the Radicals to initiate a coordinated response. Representative Stevens introduced a resolution to prevent the seating of any Members-elect from the former Confederate states and establish a bicameral committee to investigate conditions in the South. The panel, known as the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, was made up of nine Representatives and six Senators. It conducted hearings and grappled with the constitutional questions that followed emancipation, such as defining citizenship and preventing southern governments from excluding potential Black voters while benefiting from their inclusion in population totals used to formulate congressional apportionment.⁸

Radicals began to set the nation on a new course for Reconstruction—one that was charted by Congress and designed to fundamentally change the South. When Georgia ratified the Thirteenth Amendment on December 6, three-quarters of the states had voted to amend the Constitution to abolish slavery. Congress had already created the Freedmen’s Bureau to provide freed people with schools and assistance with economic and legal affairs. As lawmakers called for additional legislation and constitutional amendments to assist freed people, several newspapers reported the imminent organization of “an outside Congress”—a term used to describe the lobbyists of the day—to represent African Americans in Washington. Black activists were prepared, as they had been advocating for the civil and political rights of free people of color as well as the abolition of slavery since long before shots were fired at Fort Sumter. Black communities in 17 states and the District of Columbia chose the members of the delegation, and the Boston Investigator noted that the group was “especially charged with directly attending to their interests before Congress.”⁹

Two months later, on February 7, 1866, President Johnson received a delegation in the White House led by Frederick Douglass and Black activist and restaurateur George T. Downing. The members of the delegation hailed from both sides of the sectional divide. For example, the Manhattan-born Downing operated a successful restaurant in Newport, Rhode Island. He would later run the Members’ Dining Room in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1868 to 1876. South Carolina had sent Alonzo J. Ransier, who was elected to the state house of representatives in 1868 before becoming the first Black lieutenant governor of the state in 1870. In 1873, he would return to Washington as the Representative from South Carolina’s Second District.¹⁰

The delegation stressed the precarious position of African Americans at the beginning of 1866. The Thirteenth Amendment was not enough, Downing told the President, and “we wish it enforced with appropriate legislation.” The Constitution, he added, “knows no privileged class,” and Black Americans “should be protected in their rights as citizens and equal before the law.” They insisted on being “fully enfranchised” throughout the nation, and “anything less than this will be rendering to us less than our just due.” Douglass also directly addressed Johnson, asking him to guarantee Black voting rights. The President, Douglass stressed, had “the power to save or destroy us; to bless or blast us. I mean our whole race.” The contentious meeting concluded with Johnson lecturing the Black delegation on the problems that he thought might follow Black suffrage.¹¹

Turning to Capitol Hill, the delegation appealed to Congress and outlined a vision of Black citizenship rooted in the Constitution. On February 15, Senator Sumner introduced the delegation’s “memorial and protest” objecting to House Joint Resolution 51, a proposed constitutional amendment. Passed by the House on January 31, the joint resolution defined the punishment for those states that excluded voters on the basis of “race or color,” mandating a reduction in House seats apportioned to any state guilty of such an offense.¹²

The delegates objected to inserting this explicit reference to “race or color” into the Constitution. If enacted, the proposed amendment, although designed to deter such action, would codify the very possibility of excluding voters on these terms. The delegation warned that this troubling precedent had the potential for abuse. Sanctioning the exclusion of any citizen went against the “fathers of the republic,” who “framed and adopted” the Constitution for “the whole people—colored men being at the time legal voters in most of the States.” The delegates urged the Senate to reject the resolution. The Senate followed their recommendation and never approved the amendment.¹³

During the next five years, Republican lawmakers worked to guarantee the civil and political rights of African Americans and establish a process for readmitting former Confederate states. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to establish the rights of citizenship, institute equal protection under the law, and outlaw discrimination in employment, housing, and accommodations. After overriding a veto from President Johnson, Republicans began drafting a new constitutional amendment to redefine citizenship in the United States. When Congress approved the Fourteenth Amendment in June 1866, it explicitly granted citizenship to those born on American soil and guaranteed equal protection of the law for all. The amendment also threatened those states that attempted to discriminate at the polls with a reduction in seats apportioned in the House and barred former rebels from holding office. Despite Johnson’s opposition to the amendment, the states ratified it in 1868, extending American citizenship to the four million African-American men, women, and children who had once been enslaved.¹⁴

The President’s hostility to these measures was part of a years-long struggle with Radical Republicans in Congress. On Capitol Hill, Republicans used the powers of the House and Senate to wrest the national program for Reconstruction away from Johnson—a process that culminated with Johnson’s impeachment in 1868.

Meanwhile, conditions across the South continued to deteriorate as White terror organizations threatened, tormented, and killed freed people and their Republican allies. Congressional investigations compiled mountains of testimony cataloging these daily incidents of violence and intimidation. Many Republicans pushed the federal government to do more to assist the postwar South in economic development and ensure peace in the region.¹⁵

In Washington, the Republican-led Congress directly intervened in the affairs of the southern states. In 1867, a series of Reconstruction Acts outlined a concrete plan for readmitting the rebellious states, including the establishment of five military districts in the South that would be occupied by federal troops. This legislation prescribed a process for states to regain their seats in Congress: ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, approve new state constitutions, and ensure the voting rights of African-American men. The U.S. military played a crucial role in securing Black civil and political rights and establishing the conditions for democratic elections.¹⁶

Away from Capitol Hill, freed people and their allies laid the foundation for Republican strength in the South. Black Americans extended the Republican Party’s reach throughout the region, building the party from the ground up. A thriving national Black political culture complemented and reinforced this democratic revolution in southern politics and society. An emerging agenda for change united Black communities, and those committed to the cause of Black freedom met in national and state conventions throughout this period. Finally, this diverse constituency of White and Black allies played a major role in the conventions held by southern states to draft new state constitutions that embraced Black suffrage.¹⁷

By 1870, Reconstruction had transformed southern politics: Republicans controlled southern state governments and African-American lawmakers had been elected to lead state legislatures. Louisiana had three Black lieutenant governors between 1868 and 1877, and Mississippi elected a Black speaker of the house in 1872—future Representative John R. Lynch. But only in South Carolina, where African Americans accounted for 60 percent of the population, were Black majorities possible in the state house from 1868 to 1876 and in the state senate from 1872 to 1876. Black voters were critical to the Republican Party’s electoral fortunes throughout the South during this period. By 1877, roughly 2,000 Black men held local, state, and federal offices throughout the South.¹⁸

Despite grassroots support and the growing institutional power of Republicans at the state and local level, Radicals remained concerned that the gains of Reconstruction were not universally realized throughout the nation. To ensure African Americans could enjoy the full range of rights as citizens, Republicans drafted another constitutional amendment, including an enforcement provision to enable congressional action. Ratified in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment declared that the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

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